Tindersticks :: “The First Tindersticks Album” - This Way Up
Towards the end of Asphalt Ribbons’ life cycle in the late 1980s, its metamorphic ashes birthed the tonality and timelessness of what would eventually become the immaculate outfit by the name of Tindersticks. Hailing from Nottingham, England, the band began their melodic journey towards the end of the decade and by the beginning of the 1990s had successfully established themselves as a live powerhouse without having any real physical material out in the world aside from some home recordings laying dormant and a single on their newly found label, Tiny Toe Records, prior to the release of their groundbreaking self-titled debut in 1993. While having the momentum of the late John Peel at their side as well as empires like Melody Maker, NME, Rolling Stone and countless other entities raving and effortlessly becoming receptive to the band’s poetic pull, Tindersticks manifested like some erotic explosive placed somewhere exotically electrifying and harmoniously humid and have since become legends in the fibers of contemporary music for all eternity.
“We had surprised ourselves with the power of this thing we had created.”
With the high stakes of trepidation and the sincerity found in the starved streets of madness, lurks this language only spoken by Tindersticks that truly brings an iconic light to any subject or soundscape that needs atmospheric assistance. Possessing the elements within the coined genre of ‘Chamber Pop’, Tindersticks brought an enormous amount of compatibility and cosmic coincidence with their 1993 classic and have set the bar for not only the genres' rich history, but that of the collective commute of introducing the many modes of stringed instrumentation and thematic epicness with the steady rhythms of rock and roll. With the vibrational vocals implemented by the band’s frontman, Stuart Staples, coursing through the lavish levels of the swelling multi-instrumentation of Dickon Hinchliffe, comes this brilliant atmospheric alliance that brought the rest of the band and its extended family to studio Townhouse III in London during the summer of 1993 to purposefully propel themselves into the sonic depths of philosophy, romanticism and the abstract narrative of both life and death.
Across the heroic landscape of the band’s dynamical debut reveals this rare air of cosmic complexity within the colorful crevices by displaying the gasping gospel and jamming juggernaut of the album’s radical core. With numbers like “Milky Teeth”, “Jism”, “Patchwork”, “Paco de Renaldo's Dream" and the audacious anthem of “City Sickness” all coming together to make this double album, which at the time was unfamiliar and unheard of, this perfectly ageless artifact of artistic brilliance, Tindersticks entered the tonal twilight-zone and have since conquered the sonic stratosphere with their endless energy and stellar approach to song making. With a career that has spanned over three decades, dozens of both studio and live albums as well as a brand-new release entitled, “Soft Tissue”, it is without a doubt that the band has securely locked in place a luscious legacy that will be pondered, sonically studied and reflected by many generations to come.
